Layered Salad Majesty Above the Day-Glo Roast

Since my Wednesday cookbooks have been mostly pictureless lately, today we'll look at The Kraft Cookbook: 75 Years of Good Food Ideas (1977). The book is a celebration for Kraft's 1978 75th anniversary, and it is loaded with color pictures.

Since it's a celebration, we will start with something majestic:

It's kind of pretty with the various layers, and it probably sounds at least all right to those of you who like mayonnaise with curry powder in it on top of peas and raw onions. But majestic? I'm not so sure. If mayo on top of (previously frozen) peas is your idea of majestic, then either your priorities are way off or most of the world must be mind-blowingly awesome.

This salad just makes me nervous because you know the first scoop will send mayo-covered peas everywhere. The tablecloth will be distinctly less majestic when you're done with this one.

Looking more subdued is Mushroom Bread:

It actually sounds pretty good: crescent roll dough baked with mushrooms and a bit of parm (even if it is sawdust-y Kraft "parm"). It's just that the picture makes the Mushroom Bread look sooo sad-- like a dried-out pizza missing the best parts: sauce and melty cheese! The recipe tries to sell this creation as a "unique bread that resembles a pizza," but to me the resemblance to a pizza is not the selling point. It's the problem. If they had figured out a way to roll crescents around a mushroom filling or something, this would look 157% more appetizing.

Speaking of appetizing, I got a funny feeling when I looked at the Caramel Breakfast Cake:

I knew it SHOULD look good. Come on-- pecans and caramel over flaky biscuits! I should think it looks delicious. But there was just something about that weird, orange-y sheen that made the whole thing look sinister to me. Then I realized it was because the weird, orange-y sheen was shared by this:

When your Spanish Pot Roast with olives and onions has the same glow as the caramel cake with pecans, there is a problem. Now my mind is forced to imagine a Catalina French dressing-topped breakfast cake and a Spanish roast all covered in caramel. Thanks, Kraft. Thanks a freaking lot.